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November 30, 2020

Financial Challenges of Agile

Over the last few weeks, I have spoken with numerous insurers that have accelerated their move to Agile and the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) in response to the major changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of these carriers have been doing Agile at a project level and are rapidly moving toward a new portfolio-level implementation. Sounds great! However, as organizations have...

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Mitch Wein

October 27, 2020

How Does QA and Testing Change with Agile and the Cloud?

Insurers have mostly replaced traditional software testing and quality assurance (based on the Waterfall methodology) with a new set of testing approaches based on variations of Agile. Testing is no longer confined to the quality assurance department. Much of modern testing and QA is located within product development Scrum teams. Testing is now continuous, promotions to new environments...

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Mitch Wein

October 26, 2020

Large Commercial/Specialty Carriers, Data, and the Three Levers of Value

Data is a key concern for specialty carriers—acquiring it; understanding it; sharing it; and using it to ease sales, improve underwriting, and cut costs. Eric Weisburg and I discussed these aspects and more with carriers at last week’s Special Interest Group meeting on large commercial/specialty lines. We discussed how Internet of Things (IoT) devices, distribution APIs, and AI and machine...

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Mitch Wein

October 13, 2020

Claims: How AI Is Changing Everything!

As the year 2020 proceeds to its conclusion, the status quo has been washed away. But some things have not changed. The goal of every claims organization has been and will remain quickly adjusting a claim at a low cost with high levels of customer satisfaction. These goals are often at odds with each other, which highlights the importance of strategic alignment. Insurance carriers have...

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Mitch Wein

August 26, 2020

Analytics: Can I Trust It?

What can I say about 2020? Things have changed, people have changed, the business environment has changed, and the insurance industry is changing. Yet, the importance of data and analytics has not changed. The pandemic has forced processes to go digital. More data is being generated from more points of origin today than at any time in human history. Data generated and the insights derived...

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Mitch Wein

August 24, 2020

P/C Claims: Operational Resilience Will Be Key to Future Retention as Digitization Continues to Increase

The pandemic has had a substantial impact on everything. P/C claims is no exception, as Novarica VP Deb Zawisza and I discussed during the P/C Claims Special Interest Group. COVID-19 has increased the need for insurers to digitize the claims process, from intake through adjudication and payment. Novarica has seen fewer claims in areas like auto and increased claims in other areas like...

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Mitch Wein

August 7, 2020

Novarica/Locke Lord Webinar: COVID-19, Best Interest Industry Sales Standards, and Third-Party Risk Management

Novarica and Locke Lord’s recent quarterly webinar on regulatory changes affecting insurance technology discussed changes stemming from the pandemic, emerging state “best interest” industry sales standards, and third-party risk management. Following certain technology best practices will help insurers keep abreast of these and future regulatory changes. COVID-19 Legal/Regulatory Changes in...

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Mitch Wein

July 10, 2020

Insurance Technology, the Pandemic, and Rapid Regulatory Change

Every quarter, Locke Lord LLP and Novarica create a report and hold a webinar on new regulatory developments in analytics, the use of data, and data security that have the potential to affect insurer technology strategy. The latest report came out last month and covers regulatory changes resulting from the pandemic, states’ best interest sales standards, and rules around third-party...

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Mitch Wein

July 9, 2020

Specialty and Large Commercial: Change is Everywhere

It would be an understatement to call 2020 a year of change: between COVID-19, the consequent economic recession (depression?), and sociopolitical instability, nothing has stayed the same. Change has come to the specialty and large commercial insurance segment as well, which needs to respond to emerging risks and provide products to mitigate them. This year has seen shifts in the...

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Mitch Wein

June 18, 2020

Architecture: Critical and Necessary in the Post-Pandemic 2020s!

The year 2020 brought tremendous changes. As a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic, everyone who could work from home did so. Non-digital processes in insurance companies such as check issuance, mailroom, and policy printing were exposed as no longer fit for purpose. An expected acceleration of digitalization in insurance over the decade has accelerated into full-scale revolutionary...

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Mitch Wein